ANECDOTES OF THE APE
While men like to have the monkey for a pet, the monkey imitates them by having pets of its own. It has a fancy for this and likes to have something or some animal under its care. It may be a doll, a guinea pig, a white rat, or anything to which it takes a fancy. This was the case with a monkey we are told of, which was very fond of nursing.
His fancy in this way brought him to a sad end. Seeing a litter of young pigs, he grew eager to have one of these for a pet. Watching till the mother pig was at the other end of the pen he popped down and seized one of the little grunters. With his prize he leaped to the door of the pig-stye, but it gave way under his weight and he fell back into the jaws of the furious sow, who with one crunch put an end to the pet-lover's career.
Here is another story told by the same party: "A female baboon which I brought up in my family got hold of a kitten with the intention of making a pet of it and mothering it, but was scratched by the scared fondling. The monkey then made a close study of the kitten's paws, pressed the claws forward, looked at them from above, from beneath, and from the side, and then bit them off to save itself from further scratches."
This love of pets on one occasion led to a serious scene. It was in the case of a large baboon kept on a ship on which was a lady passenger with a baby. Not noticing that the baboon had its eye on the little one, the mother laid it down on a bench to look at something which the captain wanted to show her.
In a moment the big monkey had the child in its arms and was running for the rigging, hastened by the mother's scream on seeing the fate of her little one.
Clasping the baby with one arm, the nimble creature ran up to the mast head with the aid of the other, and when the sailors started after it ran to the head of the top mast. By this time the poor mother was being carried to the cabin in a dead faint.
What to do the captain did not know. He called the sailors down, fearing that if they chased the brute it might throw the child into the sea. But when it saw that they had given up the pursuit it set itself to quiet the screaming child, fondling and talking to it in a very motherly way.
The baby by this time was in a terrible state, and the captain, at his wits' end, at length ordered everybody on deck to go below, thinking the monkey might come down if the coast were clear. The plan proved a good one. On seeing that there was no one on deck, the animal descended with its prize and laid it on the bench from which it had been taken. It was soon in its mother's arms and the pet-loving baboon found itself locked up as a punishment for its trick.
Monkeys are often kept on ship board and they are not to be trusted if there is anything they can steal. There were two of them on a British naval ship in the West Indies, a big and a little one, both great favorites. Dressed in uniform, they would march up and down the deck, salute the captain, and imitate the movements of the officer of the watch. But both were thieves, the big one stealing, the little one hiding, and they needed watching.
One day the captain's gold snuff-box was missing. It was known that the monkeys had stolen it, for both of them were taken with a severe fit of sneezing. But no one could find it, until the little one was seen peeping into a middy's chest. Searching this, the box was found below the clothing.
Another theft was made while the ship was at anchor in Kingston harbor, Jamaica. This time it was a bottle of wine, which the big one emptied without leaving a drop for his pal, who sat and looked at him as if he had been very badly treated.
In a few minutes the big thief was reeling about the deck very drunk. He jumped on the bulwarks, and seeing a shark swimming around the ship began a great jabbering and at last jumped overboard, perhaps with some idea of making a pet of the big fish. One snap of the huge jaws and the drunken monkey was no more.
The little one saw this with screams of agony. He could not be consoled for the loss of his mate, and the next day he, too, jumped overboard and was soon in the same place as his dead friend.